The Best New Trails

Free Lunch

7 / 10

Fifteen miles up I-70 from Fruita’s famous singletrack, the Lunch Loop trails built into the high-desert plateau above Grand Junction offer a worthy destination all their own. The 30-plus-mile network bench-cut into the rugged terrain is a model of cooperation between land managers and local riders, but the real coup de gras here is Free Lunch, the first sanctioned freeride trail built on federal land. This landmark trail sheds some 1,000 vertical feet in less than a mile, as riders slice through ledgy sandstone. Most moves that threaten serious consequences have alternate, roll-down lines, but some—like the three-foot-high “squirrel-catcher” drop that kicks off the trail—are mandatory. Like that rowdy older brother who has broken-in the parents for the other siblings, the success of Free Lunch has already segued into another experts-only trail called Pucker Up, which challenges riders with bigger hits and fewer ride-arounds.

Miles in network: 35 > Length of Free Lunch approval process: 5 years > Length of time to build: 3 weeks